5.  The applicant was born in 1969 and lives in Košice.
6.  On 22 May 1997 an individual, A., disappeared. He was the head of a municipal office and an entrepreneur. It has been submitted by the applicant, and not disputed by the Government, that he was the principal owner of an important industrial enterprise, B., which was going through the process of denationalisation and was at the relevant time still partly co‑owned by the State in the person of the National Property Fund, a public institution responsible for the administration and denationalisation of State‑owned property in Slovakia.
7.  An official search for A. ensued. It was directed by C. At that time he was the head of the criminal investigation department of a regional police headquarters of the region concerned. According to the Government, whose submission has not been disputed by the applicant, C. left the police for the private sector in 1999.
8.  Nevertheless, the search efforts were unsuccessful and, at an unspecified time, A. was pronounced legally dead.
9.  In 2000 a criminal investigation of the disappearance of A. was opened by the Serious Offences Investigation Department in another regional town. The investigation was however stayed in 2005, as no evidence had been established allowing charges to be brought against any specific individual.
10.  The circumstances of the disappearance of A., the search for him and his presumed whereabouts were the subject of an article published on 31 May 2000 in a weekly magazine with nationwide coverage.
After the publication of the article written by the applicant, which is at the heart of the present case, and which is mentioned in detail below, these matters were again written on in another article published at an unspecified time in another weekly magazine with nationwide coverage.
Without including a reference to it, the latter article contained some parts of the applicant’s article.
11.  In May 2001 the applicant, who is an editor, obtained information from C. concerning the disappearance of A.
12.  On 29 May 2001 C. signed a written declaration before a notary public confirming, in the following terms, that he had previously provided the applicant with such information for the purpose of having it published:
“I have heard a recording of an intercepted telephone conversation which took place on the evening when the head of the municipal office in ... [A.] disappeared. At that time I was the head of the criminal investigation department of the regional police headquarters in ...and I personally took part in the search for the missing [A.].
The recording contained the voice of [D.], who was calling from [a restaurant] to a hotel ... and announced that [A.] was already on the way. We have not been able to establish who took the call, because the recording, like other evidence, has been removed from the file.
At the very beginning of the investigation we were visited by ... who was at that time deputy director of the Slovak Intelligence Service, and who declared that [A.] was dead and that the investigation was over.”
13.  At that time the applicant worked for a daily newspaper named Národná obroda, which was published by a limited liability company, E.
The daily had nationwide coverage, and in the course of the ensuing proceedings was accepted by the courts as being opinion-forming (mienkotvorný).
14.  On 16 June 2003 an article written by the applicant was published in Národná obroda under the title:
‘An industrialist [A.] of [a town] has disappeared and never been found’
15.  The article drew a parallel between the case of A. and that of another entrepreneur who had disappeared earlier that month. According to the article, that entrepreneur and A. were both associated with one of the major political parties, and their disappearances resembled one another. The individuals referred to in the article included D. and were identified by their full names.
16.  In so far as relevant, the article contained the following passages:
“The last people who saw [A.] had had a meeting with him in [a restaurant] concerning a capital entry into [B.]. [A.] controlled [B.] ...The dinner was attended by [two businessmen on behalf of another company], and a local representative of their interests, [D.] ...
‘My husband went to that meeting with concerns’: declared [A.’s] widow. ‘The meeting was originally intended to take place over lunch, but it was suddenly rescheduled for the evening. He had no intention of letting any outsider into the company. My husband left all the documents concerning [the company] with his secretary, who was to pass them on to me if something happened to him.’”
17.  The passage that would later become crucial (see paragraph 29 below) read as follows:
“The editorial office of [Národná obroda] moreover has in its possession a written statement by one of the police officers who took part in the search for [A.]. ‘I have heard a recording of an intercepted telephone conversation from that evening. [D.] called from [a restaurant] to a hotel ... and announced that [A.] was already on the way. We have not however been able to establish who took the message, and the recording, like other evidence, was later removed from the file.’, submits the former police officer who took part in the search for [A.].
[D.] dropped [A.] off in his car in front of [a factory] and [A.] has not been seen since. The tape with the recording probably no longer exists.
‘The next day the then director of counter-espionage at [the Slovak Intelligence Service] ..., seized the recording. He said that [A.] was dead and that the investigation was over.’, alleges the police officer.”
18. D. is a practising lawyer and an entrepreneur involved in national and international trade. On 18 June 2003 he addressed complaints about the article of 16 June 2003 to the chief editor of Národná obroda and to its publisher, E., seeking publication of a correction and an apology, as well as the payment of an equivalent of approximately 120,000 euros (EUR) in damages. He received no reply.
19.  On 4 August 2003 D. lodged a libel action against E. with the Poprad District Court (Okresný súd). He relied on Articles 11 et seq. of the Civil Code (Law no. 40/1964 Coll., as amended) and Article 8 of the Convention, asserted protection of his personal integrity, and claimed damages in the amount mentioned above.
20.  The action was later amended so as eventually to advance the line of argument that the article contained untrue, incomplete and misleading statements, in particular as regards (i) the alleged representation by D. of the interests of another entity; (ii) the implied suggestion that A. had been dragged to the meeting against his will by D.; (iii) the allegation that D. had made a telephone call giving information about A.’s movements; (iv) the business background of the meeting; and (v) the general tenor of the article, which implied that D. might have had something to do with A.’s disappearance.
21.  On 27 July 2004 the District Court admitted the applicant to the proceedings as the second defendant of the action, following an application by D. to that effect at a hearing held the previous day.
22.  Further hearings were held on 18 February and 8 April 2005 and 19 April, 30 May, and 15 December 2006.
At these hearings, the parties, their representatives and a number of witnesses were heard, including C., who acknowledged knowing and having spoken to the applicant before the publication of the article and having provided him with information concerning the investigation of the disappearance of A. However, C. could not recall the information he had provided to the applicant in any detail.
23.  The examination of further witness evidence was principally aimed at assessing the repercussions of the article on D.’s reputation and business, the circumstances of the fateful meeting, and its corporate and transactional background.
24.  The District Court also obtained information from the police concerning the status of the criminal investigation of A.’s disappearance and the existence of any elements in the investigation case file originating from the alleged interception of calls. According to the police report, no such elements were or had been present in the investigation file. However, the investigation had only been opened in 2000 (see paragraph 9 above), and prior to its commencement there had been no criminal investigation stricto sensu, but only an official search for A. (see paragraph 7 above).
25.  Following the last-mentioned hearing, on 15 December 2006 the District Court allowed the action in so far as D. was claiming the equivalent of approximately EUR 28,500 in damages and a further EUR 14,650 in costs and expenses, payable by E. and the applicant jointly and severally. The remainder of the claim was dismissed.
26.  The applicant appealed, arguing, inter alia, that the article concerned matters of what was known as large-scale privatisation, that is to say the process of transferring State ownership of industrial enterprises into private hands. This process was undoubtedly of public interest, and the media had the duty to report on matters concerning it. Furthermore, the article only went as far as indicating that the editorial office of Národná obroda had had in its possession a written statement by C., which was true. By no means had the article suggested that the contents of this statement were endorsed by E. or the applicant, and neither were they presented as a matter of fact.
27.  The appeal was subject to a court fee amounting to the equivalent of some EUR 1,950, the applicant’s request for an exemption from which was dismissed.
28.  On 20 February 2008 the Prešov Regional Court (Krajský súd) determined the appeals by quashing the contested judgment and discontinuing the proceedings in so far as they concerned E., because in the course of the proceedings E. had been dissolved and struck out of the Companies’ Register without a legal successor.
At the same time, the Regional Court reduced the amount of damages payable by the applicant to the equivalent of some EUR 3,000, along with costs amounting to the equivalent of some EUR 10,150.
29.  The reasoning of the District Court, as complemented by that of the Regional Court, may be summarised as follows:
There had been an interference with D.’s personal integrity, stemming in particular from the suggestion that he had made a telephone call concerning A.’s movements. The claimant’s complaint about the other factual allegations in the article, such as that he had been representing someone else’s interests and had dragged A. along to the meeting, was ill-founded.
As regards the crucial allegation concerning the alleged phone call, the courts noted that this was based on the information provided to the applicant by C., which however had been unofficial and unconfirmed. In that respect, with reference to the position taken by the police, the courts concluded that the truthfulness of this allegation had not been established.
It was the role of the media to provide objective and balanced news, and the applicant’s defence, which relied on the fact that he had obtained the impugned information from C. and the statement that he had no duty to verify it, could not be accepted.
In that respect, as a matter of principle, the author and the publisher of an article were responsible for providing truthful content for their published information. This responsibility was to be construed as an objective one, and it was not discharged by quoting the information and referring to its source. Moreover, issues such as intent and negligence were irrelevant.
The applicant, who had not ascertained the truthfulness or otherwise of the contested information, was liable for its being untrue, and the fact that he had quoted it and referred to its source was of no consequence.
The unlawful interference with his personal integrity had caused considerable damage to D.’s good name and reputation. But the fact that the applicant had cited his source and that, despite the article, D. continued with a private and social life as well as his successful career, militated in favour of reducing the amount of damages as determined by the Court of Appeal.
30.  The matter became resolved by force of a final and binding judgment on 14 April 2008.
31.  On 18 June 2008 the applicant lodged a complaint under Article 127 of the Constitution (Constitutional Law no. 460/1992 Coll., as amended), alleging a violation of his rights under Article 10 of the Convention.
The applicant argued that the information in the article concerning the alleged call by D. was a statement of fact, made in quotation marks and with a general reference to its source. It was, as such, truthful, because the editorial office of Národná obroda did in fact have at its disposal the information quoted. Moreover, in view of the official function of C., the applicant should not have had any legitimate doubt that that information was true.
32.  On 3 June 2008 the Constitutional Court (Ústavný súd) declared the complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. It held that a general court could not bear “secondary liability” for a violation of fundamental rights and freedoms of a substantive nature unless there had been a violation of procedural rules. As no violation of any procedural rule had been alleged, there could not have been a violation of the cited substantive provision either.
The decision was served on the applicant’s lawyer on 15 August 2008.